Prior decontamination methods of this type employed hydrogen peroxide (H2O2, aqueous) as the oxidizing agent to produce a liquid effluent, which required it disposition as radiological waste. The subject invention entails a reactor with gas-phase constituent as the oxidizing agent. Elemental tritium (any variant, i.e. HT, DT, T2) present in reaction vessel is oxidized to form tritium oxide (any variant, i.e. HTO, DTO, T2O). In the subject invention, sensible heat input facilitates are employed to evaporate the discharge of pre-existing and newly formed tritium oxide. The resulting gas-phase effluent allows for the bulk collection and/or recycling of the tritium via molecular sieve bed, gas holding tank, or tritium purification system (isotope separation).
Thus, it is an object of this invention to:                (a) provide a method and apparatus for the removal of tenaciously held tritium from the surface (and near-surface) of contaminated items.        (b) provide for the removal of the tritium oxide from the reactor to provide for further processing or, if warranted, release to atmosphere.        (d) provide dynamic (rotary) apparatus for decontamination of light items.        (e) provide a static apparatus for decontamination of heavier, delicate, and/or valuable items.        
Additional advantages, objects and novel features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following and by practice of the invention.